


The Wine Cellar

by extree



Series: Dark Castle [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Castle, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 04:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1927404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extree/pseuds/extree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the cat's away, the mice will play. But in this case, the cat comes home to find a completely unapologetic mouse sipping his red wine. In other words; Belle discovers the wine cellar and a bewildered Rumplestiltskin isn't quite sure how to handle the situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wine Cellar

Where on earth was Belle? Normally, when Rumplestiltskin got back to the castle after a long day’s trading and plotting and scheming and what have you, Belle would either be sitting in the main hall, reading a book and drinking her evening cup of tea, or she’d be holed up in that library of hers. (His. Whichever.) But now he couldn’t find her in either of those places, and when Rumplestiltskin knocked on her bedroom door to see if perhaps she’d gone to bed earlier than usual, there came no reply. She hadn’t shut the door properly so it creaked open when he knocked, and he didn’t have to feel too bad about sticking his head in and making sure she hadn’t tripped and cracked her skull on the floor or anything like that. She wasn’t there either, however, and now he was getting the slightest bit worried.

“Belle?” he called out in the hallway. Fairly softly, at first, in case she was nearby and ready to jump out to subtly mock him for his concern, but he heard nothing but his own voice bouncing off the walls.

“Belle!” he cried again, louder this time.

She wasn’t answering. If she’d heard him and she was in trouble, she would have called his name, and he would have been able to locate her immediately. He was starting to get a strange, most unwelcome and unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach. Had she left? No, no, she wouldn’t run off like that. She had too great a sense of responsibility for that, and these last few weeks, she’d seemed oddly… sunny, somehow. But that only left a worse option to consider: had some intruder abducted her? That thief again, perhaps? Rumplestiltskin had no doubt in his mind that Belle would be a furious little thing to reckon with if the situation called for it, but that wouldn’t be enough to ward off any truly determined foe - she was so wee!

Perhaps she’d gotten herself locked in one of the dungeon cells? Yes, that must have been what had happened. It was the only thing that made any sort of sense. He had no idea exactly _how_ she would have managed that, but Rumplestiltskin had slowly been learning not to underestimate his caretaker’s clumsiness, and he knew that if anyone would find a way to accidentally lock herself in a cell the keys of which she didn’t even possess, that person would be Belle. That tea cup had only been the beginning of a series of spillages and dents and tears and cracks - good grief - so why would she draw the line at that? Nothing was safe, save for the books in the library.

To the dungeon. Yes. She had to be there. If she wasn’t, then… then he… No, she’d be there. With that sick feeling in his stomach still there but a small spark of hope in his chest to balance things out, Rumplestiltskin magicked his way into the lower level of the castle and called her name once more.

“Belle!” his voice bounced against the stone walls and echoed a while. “Are you down here?”

“Over here!”

The sound was muffled and seemed far-off, but she was definitely in these lower levels of the castle. Bloody hell, what a relief. Not to have to track down the thief and kill him after all, that is. Such a hassle.

“Belle! Say my name so I can find you!”

He heard something… odd. Almost like a giggle, but that couldn’t have been it. That didn’t make any sense whatsoever. It must have been a cry of pain because she’d gotten her leg stuck under a fallen statue, or her arm lodged between the iron bars of a cell door, or something of that nature.

“Rumplestiltskin!”

He heard her. He felt her. She was down here alright, but not in one of the cells. She’d barely finished speaking his name before his body and his magic had responded and he was near her in a flash. _Quite_ near her, he noticed with some shock. And she wasn’t stuck. She wasn’t in distress.

“Oh!” she giggled with a little start, a hand to her chest and laughter in her eyes.

She was sitting in an arm chair in her blue dress with one leg crossed over the other, a book in her lap and a glass of wine in her hand, and he was standing right in front of her - so close she had to crane her neck up to make eye contact.

The wine cellar? She’d been here all this time?

When he’d teleported just then, in all his eagerness to make sure she was alri-… to make sure his investment hadn’t been badly damaged, he ended up a little too close; one inch closer and he would have crushed her toes under his boots. With a bit of a stumble he hoped she hadn’t noticed, he jumped back and needlessly brushed some imaginary dust from the front of his jacket.

“Hi!”

She bit down on her grin but it was impossible to miss her obvious amusement; her shoulders were shaking a bit in her silent laughter. There was something about her. Her cheeks were red and her eyes looked a little bleary, and when he looked at the table to her right, he realized why. She’d made quite some headway on one of his bottles of wine.

“You’re back, then, Rumplestiltskin,” Belle chimed.

“I am. And you’ve… found the wine cellar, I see,” he said, clearing his throat immediately after.

“I did indeed! Do you mind at all? I took the least dusty bottle. Figured the really dusty ones must be old and valuable.”

Excellent reasoning, and an excellent question. Did he mind? Obviously not, but that wasn’t really the question he was asking himself. Should he _act_ like he minded? That was the real issue, here. He supposed he probably should. What sort of powerful dark sorcerer would tolerate the help taking such liberties?

A powerful dark sorcerer who quite liked it when his maid was in a good mood - that’s what sort.

“I suppose it’s alright,” he sighed. “Just this once.”

“Just this once,” she repeated with a grave nod, managing to keep up her serious look for all of two seconds before her grin burst through like the sun in a forest clearing.

“But leave the cellar door open next time so you can hear me call. I thought you’d bolted.”

“… Next time? Oh, so _not_ just this once?”

“Ah. Uh…” Hell. Tipsy but just as perceptive. Of bloody course. “Obviously, now you’ll have to start cleaning this room, too. That’s what I meant.”

Did she just roll her eyes? The nerve! To roll her eyes at him was one thing, but to look utterly endearing while doing it was just downright dirty. It was like stabbing a man in the gut and somehow disarming him in one fell swoop so he couldn’t even lash out in anger, his sword clattering to the floor and kicked just out of his reach.

He really ought to leave her be. Sit at his wheel and spin, or work on his potions, perhaps. She’d obviously been enjoying herself in his absence, and while he was rather curious to see how Belle carried herself after one, two, three glasses of wine, perhaps his caretaker would benefit from a night off from his undoubtedly oppressive presence.

“Well then. I have some business to attend to. I’ll leave you to your,” he paused to draw out an elegant flourish, “… merrymaking.”

“Aw, come on! Stay.”

Stay? Really? He sighed and turned on his heels to face the door that led back to the main dungeon area, meaning for it to look like he was leaving despite her plea, but really, he just needed to look elsewhere for a moment. With a little wine in her, Belle’s stare was a lot more insistent than it usually was. Oh, he’d caught her staring before, of course, but she at least had the decency to quickly turn away when he caught her doing it, those times. He knew he was a monstrous sight to behold, but you’d think she’d have gotten used to it by now. Apparently not.

“Please? Just sit with me for a while.”

Ugh. Why didn’t he just give her the bloody dagger, with the way he struggled not to bend to her will. With the most dour expression he could manage and an overly dramatic sigh, Rumplestiltskin turned to face her once more and sat down opposite. The two wooden chairs with beautifully twisted carved legs were angled towards each other with a little side table in between, where Belle had put her book next to the bottle of wine she’d so shamelessly claimed. She looked very pleased with herself, Belle did.

“Would you like me to pour you some wine, Rumplestiltskin? There’s one or two glasses in there, still, I think.”

She was surprisingly intelligible for someone who had drunk the better part of an entire bottle of red wine. Before his curse, even he would have had some trouble pronouncing his own name after half a bottle, but she seemed to be doing alright. Better not accept her offer; she’d want him gone, soon. That book of hers - he recognized it, and he had found it difficult to put down when he read it about half a century ago, himself. She’d probably want to get back to it soon.

“No. I don’t think so, dearie.”

She looked at him for a moment, curious but not puzzled, and she nodded and sat back in her chair with a little smile. The oil lamps gave off a warm glow that complemented her slightly flushed complexion and she looked well. Content, somehow. And suddenly he was glad he’d stayed.

“Tell me about your day,” she said, bringing her glass to her lips for another sip.

“Oh, no,” he said, shaking his head and waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I think you should tell me about yours.”

“Really?”

God, yes. He wanted to listen to her talk with her looser lips. He had the feeling it would be just the kind of entertainment that had been sorely lacking on his fruitless trip.

“Why not? I know how my day went, after all. Why would I bore myself by recounting it for the nosy help?”

“Really, Rumplestiltskin?” she huffed. Her voice was lower now, and she gave him an exaggerated look of skepticism. “You really want to hear about the maid’s day of dusting and folding and cleaning and reading while you were off on an adventure?”

What was that feeling? It was unpleasant. Like a sour taste in his mouth. Guilt? No. No, that didn’t make any sense. That couldn’t have been it. But she was staring him down; those damnable eyes slightly narrowed and a hint of a smirk on her face, and he felt so much like a gently scolded child that when his eyes drifted to the bottle in between them, he changed his mind.

“Perhaps I’ll have some wine after all. If you’ve left any, that is.”

“Good!” she chimed with a delightful grin. “I’ll go and find you another glass.”

“No need for that,” he replied. With a flick of his fingers, a matching glass appeared on the table in a small puff of purple smoke.

“At least let me pour it, then.”

“If you must. Try to get most of it in the glass.”

She snorted (how charming) but she took the bottle in her small hands with just a little more care and slowly began to pour.

“Does wine even… do anything for you?” she asked, glancing up from her task briefly.

Inquisitive thing, wasn’t she? If it had been anyone else asking, Rumplestiltskin would have threatened to turn them into a grape already.

“As in, do I get intoxicated? A bit. The general sensation’s there. Warm, slightly heady feeling. But it doesn’t progress beyond that,” he explained. She nodded, made a soft sound in her throat.

“There you go,” she said, offering him the generously poured glass.

“Thank you.”

“So I assume you never drink these?”

She made a little gesture with the hand holding her glass, motioning towards the alcoves in the wall that housed the wooden racks stocked with bottles of varying colors and sizes. He had to bite back a sharp, sudden laugh because she seemed oblivious to the fact that she was spilling wine on her dress.

“I don’t, no,” he said, his hand in front of his mouth in an attempt to stifle the laughter threatening to bubble up.

“Why do you keep them, then?”

“Why not?”

She gave him the strangest, most comical look he had ever seen on a woman; her nose scrunched, her lips parted and her brow furrowed - the very picture of bewilderment. The silly creature had poured a good deal of red wine on herself without even noticing, and she was trying to make _him_ feel foolish?

“That look on your face matches the stain on your dress in terms of elegance, I have to say,” he chuckled.

“Stain?”

“Mhm.”

He nodded towards the rather large dark purple stain on the corset part of her dress. It was still spreading. Belle placed her glass on the table, looked down and gasped in dismay, and that was when Rumplestiltskin simply couldn’t hold back his chuckles anymore. Not an impish giggle, but soft, barely subdued belly laughter that made his shoulders shake. He kept his mouth hidden behind the back of his hand and tried to muffle his laughter that way, and spare her the sight of his sharp teeth at the same time.

“Don’t laugh!” she cried. “Do you know how difficult it is to get red wine out of things?”

She was licking her fingers and rubbing at the stain almost frantically, and oh, it was such a hilarious sight to see her fret like that. Rumplestiltskin sat back, took a large gulp from his glass and sighed demonstratively, grin as wide as could be, eyes watery from laughing so hard. She looked up to glare at him, making him fall apart all over again, and then she resumed uselessly rubbing at the stain with a fervor he hadn’t ever witnessed when she was cleaning _his_ things.

She was muttering to herself, now, and he almost thought he could hear a few curses under her breath, and while it was tempting to wait and see if she would repeat those a little bit louder if he let her keep at it for a little while longer, he was starting to take pity. With another sigh, he snapped his fingers, and made the stain disappear. Her hands flew away in shock, her wine-stained lips parted, and then instead of thanks, he got another baffled look.

“Are you serious? Did you just remove that stain?” she asked.

“Well, _someone_ had to. The way you kept uselessly rubbing your dress, it was about to catch fire.”

“You can do that? You could do that all along?”

“Remove a mere stain? Of course I can! Frankly I’m shocked _you’re_ shocked.”

“Well then why on earth don’t you just magic the linen clean instead of have me wash them?”

“Because, dearie,” he sighed, “all magic-”

“Comes at a price, yeah yeah, I haven’t quite forgotten,” she mumbled into her wine glass, rolling her eyes again. They seemed to have gotten loose in her skull since she started drinking, and well well, this certainly was interesting. Belle had never really feared him from the moment she realized he wasn’t one to lash out because of a simple chipped cup, but right now with his wine flowing through her veins, she was downright brazen.

And he was starting to enjoy it.

With a twinkle in his eyes and a slowly widening lopsided grin, Rumplestiltskin leaned forward a little in his chair and told her, “It all adds up. Every act of magic, no matter how insignificant, has its price.”

“I understand that, I suppose. But really now,” she whined, “You ploof about the castle dozens of times in a day and you never grumble about the price of that.”

“ _Ploof_?” It was a struggle trying to keep his laughter to himself, now. Was she trying to get him to pull an abdominal muscle?

“Oh, you know,” she sang, waving her hands in an admirable but ultimately useless attempt to illustrate her words. “Ploof. You nearly ploofed yourself into my lap earlier.”

“Teleport, you mean,” he offered, averting his eyes from her flushed, expressive face so his mind could swiftly dispatch with the mental image of him in her indubitably warm and soft lap. Where the hell did that come from?

“Yes! I knew that! I just like ploof better,” said Belle, her chin tilting up in that defiant manner of hers.

“Well, either I ploof,” he said, forming air quotes around his maid’s new favorite made-up term, “or I take care of the linen. Both would just be a waste of good magic when I’ve got a perfectly good caretaker with too much spare time on her hands sitting around the estate doing nothing. It all adds up, dearie.”

“You have legs, Rumplestiltskin,” she said, her voice a low, teasing purr, eyes running from his face all the way down his body to his boot clad feet in a way that sent a shiver down his spine. Strange. Too strange. “You could use them to, you know, _walk_.”

Cheeky didn’t even begin to describe it, and oh dear, he was enjoying this far more than he should. He leaned back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other - again, drawing her gaze to his legs for some reason, which was still just as strange - drank the last of his wine and in his slightly higher, sing-song imp voice, lilted, “I’ll magically clean the linen if you piggyback me around the castle.”

Whatever it was that she had been about to say, Rumplestiltskin knew then that he would never hear it, because she was opening and closing her mouth like a fish on dry land in complete befuddlement for a rather charming few seconds before croaking out a loud giggle. Rumplestiltskin couldn’t help but smirk fondly.

“Alright, point taken,” Belle said, leaning forward in her chair as he had. “Keep ploofing, if you must. But then why did you get the stain out of my dress, if it’s such a waste of your magic?”

“Because you were only making it worse and it was a pitiful sight, that’s why. _You’re welcome_ , incidentally.”

“Right,” she mewled, lengthening the word needlessly, quirking an eyebrow.

He narrowed his eyes at her, his playful grin growing even wider at her impudence. There was something so endearing about his tiny maid’s unfiltered conversation. Her words flowed as easily as his wine had evidently done while he was away and while she’d never been servile, exactly, she’d never poked at him this way either, with her startlingly effective sarcastic tone and her obvious playful defiance.

Maybe it was that he was tired from his trip, even though the magic coursing through him rarely allowed him a moment’s rest. Hm, well then maybe it was the wine, even though his cursed body processed the stuff in a way that prevented him from experiencing any significant adverse effects. Or perhaps he was just bored, even though he had a curse of world-destroying proportions to plan, but as he sat there in her red-eyed gaze and tried to pinpoint why exactly he didn’t want to leave, it slowly began to dawn on him.

This was the first time in years someone had spoken to him as if his power were completely irrelevant. And he supposed that when it came to Belle, it was.

More of this. He wanted more. He wanted to draw her out, provoke her, give her ample opportunity to speak to him like this - like he was normal. Like he couldn’t commit unspeakable atrocities with a snap of his fingers and wipe every living thing in the surrounding area from the face of this earth. As if he were just a silly, posturing spinner who liked to ruffle his long suffering maid’s feathers at the end of the day.

“You really are a strange one, Belle. Before tonight, I could honestly say I’d never heard the word ‘ploof’ in my entire life. That’s _centuries_ without a single ‘ploof’, Belle, in case you’ve forgotten that I’m immortal. Actual centuries,” he teased. He seemed to be tickling her with his words, and her drunken chuckles were such a welcome sound - more intoxicating than the wine, even - that he couldn’t hold back his own laughter. He didn’t _want_ to anymore. “And now I’ve heard it - what? - ten times? In a single evening?”

“It’s a good word!” she cried in between giggles.

“It’s not a word, dearie,” he parried.

She seemed to be laughing at herself now, but he could recognize that hint of stubbornness in her eyes from a mile away and he knew that she had taken his bait. Good. This would be fun.

“Well, I declare it a word!”

“Oh!” he scoffed. “That’s interesting! And with what authority might that be?”

She paused, furrowed her brow and looked up at the vaulted ceiling, nibbling on her bottom lip in thought. After this shamelessly unnecessarily theatrical display that somehow simultaneously made Rumplestiltskin want to turn his back to it so he wouldn’t have to witness it, and slide his chair closer to he could commit it to memory, she cocked her head to the side and with an admirable but completely unfounded air of determination said, “With the authority inherent in the title of Lady of the Dark Castle.”

What? _What?_ Did she realize what she just said? The implications of it? There was something in her eyes that was too intense to be playful; her stare too focused, her smile too knowing, too.

A dry-mouthed, “Excuse me?” was all he could manage.

“Well,” she continued, with a little shrug and a vaguely embarrassed grin. “I don’t see any other ladies in this castle. If I am the only lady in this castle, that would make me _the_ lady of the castle, wouldn’t it? By default.”

Oh. She didn’t realize. Good. Excellent. What a relief. Now he could carry on provoking his tipsy maid like a circus bear for a little while longer. Might even get something out of it with which to embarrass her should he get bored and she too audacious tomorrow.

“I’m afraid that’s not how it works, dearie,” he almost sang, wagging his finger.

She narrowed her eyes at his finger and raised a single eyebrow, took a deep breath, sat straight in her chair and said, “I declare that it does.”

He had to scoff at that, really. How could he not? She declared it? Honestly. What silliness. How _delightful_.

“You can’t just declare something and have it be fact! It’s not a magic word!” he sputtered. “You just declared yourself capable of declaring, Belle. That’s absurd.”

“And you, Lord of the Dark Castle, just declared me capable of declaring myself capable of declaring!”

What? His brain took an extra few seconds to process that disaster of a sentence, but after verifying that that mess of repetitive words did indeed make syntactical sense, he could straighten his spine, put on a serious look and say, “I did no such thing!”

“Ah, but you most certainly did, Rumplestiltskin,” she teased with a little smirk, wagging her finger at him as he had before, “because you said I declared myself capable of declaring.”

“I _said_ it, I didn’t declare it.”

“You stated it as fact.”

“Why, you-”

He stopped talking because she was laughing so prettily now, and he wanted to just listen for a moment. Oh, she was sloshed and silly, but she was still ever so tricky! She was laughing openly now, her eyes shining with mirth and her grin bright and wide. He’d set out to have a little fun with her, to tease her just a little bit and relish her making a fool out of herself, but she was too quick on her feet even with the wine fogging her mind and now that her laughter had settled down, she was giving him the ‘Well? Are you going to stay down or am I going to have to floor you again?’ look with raised eyebrows, a subdued smirk and her eyes wide that made his words dry up and his stomach flip and oh dear, what had he gotten himself into?

“Stop staring,” he said. When he heard the words leave his mouth and bounce off the walls, they sounded harsh to his own ears, and he wished he could reach out, snatch the words back out of the air before they reached her and crush them in his hands.

“I’m not staring,” she said, her smile completely gone now. In its place; a puzzled, concerned look. “I’m just looking.”

He’d panicked. That’s what it was. He’d drawn her out like he wanted to, but he couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t handle _her_. What an idiot he was. And now he’d made that smile of hers disappear, and a grumpy, hungover maid was not something to look forward to, so Rumplestiltskin dug deep for his temporarily abandoned imp voice and decided to enlist the help of his old friend; comical self-deprecation.

“I do realize I’m hideous, dearie, but if you want me to use magic to disguise myself so you can go about your caretaker business without my horrific countenance distracting you, I’m going to need you to start sweeping the chimneys, too.”

He drew out a particularly elegant flourish and added, “Price of magic, et cetera et cetera.”

Belle was silent for a moment, her eyes locked onto his, her lip between her teeth again, but this time it seemed more of a nervous thing. Wait, she didn’t think he was serious, did she? She didn’t think she had to sweep the bloody chimneys now, right? This castle was huge! It had about forty fireplaces! He would never ask her to-

She leaned forward, reached out and touched his hand as it clutched at the arm rest of his chair, and his heart stopped in his chest. It must have stopped. It felt like it had stopped. It _couldn’t_ have stopped, because he was immortal, but then why did he feel the need to ram his fist into his chest and rip out his own heart to make absolutely sure?

He was frozen in place and her fingers burned holes through the skin of the back of his hand. She was drunk. Not very drunk, admittedly, but not very sober either, and he had to be approximately seven realms removed from her right now because this was unsafe - but he wasn’t sure why. At least those haunting eyes of her were nowhere near his. Instead, she seemed to be staring at where her soft skin met his horrid, unnatural hide.

“I like your skin,” she said softly, drawing back her hand and allowing him to sink into his chair with a soft sigh of relief. “I like how the color changes. I’ve been trying to figure it out. I thought it was the light at first, but it’s not, is it?”

“I-… I don’t know.”

“And your eyes,” she continued. She looked up again. “It’s almost as if each time I see them, they’re different.”

His mouth was dangerously dry again, his tongue a piece of felt threatening to stick to the roof of his mouth - worse than the time he had to locate an important enchanted artifact in the Agrabah desert and the blasted thing kept teleporting to the spot he’d just teleported from. His heart felt like it was beating again, but much, much too fast now, and he wished it would still, and hush, and make itself small and weak, because the sound was thunderous in his own ears and he wasn’t quite convinced Belle couldn’t hear it pounding relentlessly against his rib cage.

He needed to go. Now. He was about to vanish without a single word when Belle broke her hypnotic stare with a strange, almost melancholy smile and looked at her lap.

“I think I might head to bed now,” she murmured. Oh, the relief!

“Y-yes. That might be best.”

He stood up to take his leave, but she called out, “Wait,” and it was physically impossible for him to even take a single step towards the door. She smiled and held out her hand to him. “I’m afraid I might be a bit wobbly if I stand up right now, Rumplestiltskin. Please?”

Please. _Please_. ‘Declare’ might not have had any magical properties, but damned if ‘please’ didn’t come dangerously close. He sighed and took her proffered hand in his, looking away as she hoisted herself up and shifted a little bit of her weight to him. There was a bit of a wobble indeed, actually, and Rumplestiltskin couldn’t help his fond smile. She wasn’t looking, anyway, so that was alright. While her speech wasn’t affected save for a bit of added volume and perhaps a hint of a slur if you listened closely, her movement definitely was. It was comforting, somehow; that wobbly gait as she followed him out of the cellar. No need to feel threatened by an imbalanced maid, however inquisitive and impertinent. He’d have to walk her to her room now, though. It would be irresponsible to let her clamber up the stairs on her own.

And it was when they got to the top of the stone spiral stairs leading to the hallway, with his hand in the small of her back to make sure that if she slipped, he could at least try to keep her pretty head in one piece, that gravity finally made a move to topple his tipsy maid, making her lurch back with a sudden sharp gasp; her eyes so wide they looked like they would pop out, her mouth open in surprise.

His heart jumped and his arm tightened around her waist lightning-quick, and she was safe in his arms, pressed close against his chest and grabbing at his waistcoat, her breath shallow but warm against his neck and her hair soft as a feather against his face.

Oh.

“Thank you.”

Her voice was small but oh so close, her breath even hotter against his skin when she spoke, and as she moved her head from where it was tucked snug under his chin, he could look down and see her careful smile and rosy cheeks. It must have been the wine. Everything. All of it had been the wine. But she didn’t move away at once, even when with a start, he remembered his arm was still halfway draped around her waist and pulled it back. Belle merely loosened her grip on the fabric of his waistcoat and with her dainty fingers straightened his collar, tugging the stiff fabric to one side and then the other until she seemed pleased with the result.

“Your clothes, too,” said Belle softly, finally moving away to walk slowly down the hallway leading to her bedroom. He cleared his throat, watched her walk for a few steps (still swaying just a little bit) before finally pushing himself away from the wall she had inadvertently pushed him against and followed her.

“What of them?” he asked. His curiosity got the better of him there.

She halted, looked over her shoulder and waited for him to catch up. When he’d caught up, she shrugged, smiled - but not at him; she looked straight ahead - and explained, “I like them. They’re lovely. Dashing. Handsome. A bit dark sometimes, though.”

That wine had gotten to his head somehow. It was just one glass, but he must have accidentally magically strengthened it or something, while he was distracted by the stain on her dress, perhaps. Yes, that was the only logical explanation for the heat he felt creeping up his neck and flowing to his cheeks.

“Well,” he said, waving his hand in the air and wriggling his fingers in what was perhaps too elaborate a flourish (he knew because she was giggling again), “I _am_ the Dark One. Dark suits me.”

“You’re not just the Dark One, Rumple,” she said, shaking her head with a knowing smile as she turned, nearly lost her balance and fell back against her bedroom door in a hurried pose as if she’d meant to do that all along. Smooth. Very smooth. He chuckled. She was lucky he’d closed the door properly when he’d come looking for her there, earlier. She’d have fallen flat on her back if he hadn’t.

But… What she’d said just then, and how she said it; he had better forget all about that. The sneaky little thing hadn’t outright said that that was her _first_ bottle of the evening, had she?

So he had better stop smiling at her like that.

And she had better stop smiling back.

“Good night,” said Rumplestiltskin.

“Good night,” Belle said.

And when the door clicked shut behind her, he sighed and slumped and shuffled off. To spin, of course, and coil this tightness in his chest around the spindle until breathing didn’t feel quite so strange anymore.

…

“Good morning!” he called loudly, cheerfully, giggling with delight just as he passed Belle’s room the next day. It was almost noon, but she didn’t have to know that. He paused for a moment to hear her curse and mutter and throw her sheets about in what must have been a frantic attempt to get up. Poor thing probably thought she hadn’t overslept much - there was no timepiece in her room and she usually woke early regardless - so unless she took the time to open her curtains and see the sun hang high in the sky, she would be clueless.

Rumplestiltskin was looking forward to watching her figure it out (he flicked his wrist and snapped his fingers and visualized the nightstand next to her bed and a dark sugary rich steaming hot liquid) after she'd had her morning cup of tea.


End file.
